


Heart of Shattered Ice (beta)

by farfoon



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, It starts sad but there is a happy ending, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-18 07:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9375122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farfoon/pseuds/farfoon
Summary: Mei was awoken from cryostasis, only to find all of the other people stationed with her dead. Through the grieving, she meets a new Overwatch recruit named Aleksandra "Zarya" Zaryanova and slowly begins to fall for her.





	1. Awakening

Consciousness slowly started fading in and out for her. Light filled up her vision, and she vaguely noted her surroundings. She was in what appeared to be a medical facility and her skin felt cold. Consciousness left her before she could investigate any further.

She awoke again, and this time, there was a person in the room. The stranger had a feminine voice and spoke with an accent of some sort. “Lena, I think she’ll recover fine.” The voice said, sounding far away in her mind. “Her mind however might never be the same.” The voice had a certain familiarity to it, but she couldn't quite put her finger on why. Her consciousness faded away yet again, preventing her from giving it any more thought.

Her eyes fluttered open for the third time. There was an IV stuck in her arm, and her body was wrapped in blankets. She attempted to sit up, but was far too weak. A woman rushed to her side at the sign of movement. The lady had blonde hair tied back into a ponytail and she looked fairly young, she must have been the doctor. She couldn't shake the feeling that that she had met this woman before. “Don't be too hard on yourself, you're still recovering” the woman said. It was the same voice from before. “How are you feeling, Mei-Ling” she continued, with a concerned expression plastered onto her face.  _ Mei-Ling…  _ she thought  _ that's my name, isn't it?  _

“Where am I” Mei asked, ignoring the other woman's question. “We are on a dropship that we re-purposed.” The woman said. “How are you feeling” She repeated. Before she could respond, another woman walked into the room. She had brown hair, lots of freckles, and a strange metal device strapped over her chest. The woman appeared to be in her mid-twenties. 

“Oi, she awake yet?” The younger woman said in a thick British accent. The woman next to her nodded and gestured for her to leave. She left, and it was just the two of them again. For the first time, Mei noticed an identification tag on her lab coat. A. ZIEGLER, it read. “I’m feeling fine I, guess” Mei said. 

“Do you remember anything?” Dr. Ziegler asked, her body expression changing to nervousness. Mei thought about it for a minute, and like someone hit a switch, her memories started flooding back to her...

_ It had been about three months since the very anomaly that they were tasked to research struck the ecopoint, leaving a wake of destruction in it's path. The communications tower happened to be in the crossfire, therefore preventing the team of scientists from communicating with the rest of the world. At first, they suspected a rescue from Overwatch, but little did they know that the distress beacon went unnoticed due to the infamous the destruction of the Swiss headquarters happening only days before. With all of the allegations getting thrown towards the organization at the time, the scientists stationed in Antarctica were forgotten about. The hopes of getting rescued became less likely with every passing day. On top of this, they had reached the bottom of their supplies, and were slowly starving to death. In a last ditch effort, the six scientists entered cryrostasis in hopes to survive long enough until rescue. The last thing Mei remembered was her fellow scientists reassuring her that this was safe before lowering her into the glass pod.  _

“Where are the other scientists” Mei asked, as the machine monitoring her heart rate started beeping faster. “Don't get worked up, this rapid of an increase in heart rate is dangerous” Dr. Ziegler said in effort to avoid the question. “Where are the other scientists” Mei repeated, this time in a louder tone. “You were the only one who survived” Dr. Ziegler said with an apologetic tone. “What do you mean” Mei asked, trying to hold back tears 

“I'm terribly sorry to tell you this, but all of them have perished in the cryrostasis pods” Dr. Ziegler said, knowing fully well that this would upset her. A flood of emotions overcame her, and Mei couldn't hold back the tears any longer. She collapsed on the floor, and started to sob…


	2. Moving Forward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First and foremost, I’d like to thank my friend for reviewing these before I post them to prevent mistakes. You know who you are, I really appreciate it. I’m happy about all of the positive reception that the first chapter got, and if this continues I’ll definitely continue writing this. As always, criticisms and suggestions are always prefered. Anyways, I hope you all enjoy chapter 2, I worked hard on it. Also, I need a few people to help me review these chapters before I post them, so if you're interested, send me a message.

Adams. Arrhenius. MacReady. Opara. Torres. All dead. All gone. The realization hit her like a pile of bricks. Almost worse than that was the fact she was alone in a world that has changed to the point of almost being alien to her.  
Her memories slowly returned to her over the course of the day, including remembering who she was. Her name was Mei-Ling Zhou, a climatologist who worked for the organization known as Overwatch, which she was informed that it had disbanded due to some laws put into place by the United Nations. She had went through years of studying climatology, and it had payed off she received an invitation inviting her to join the newly formed branch of the organization that was in charge of monitoring and reversing the effects of climate change.  
The doctor, Angela Ziegler, was actually an old colleague of hers. It was good to see her again, but that was drowned out by the sorrow of the loss she had just experienced. “Mei, I know this might be a bad time, but we have limited time for this mission” the doctor paused shortly before continuing “I’d advise you to acquire any belongings that you would wish to bring with you” she said, an aura of nervousness radiated off of her while she said this.  
As much as Mei-Ling just wanted to lay down and rot away, she knew Angela was right. The energetic British woman from before, Lena, offered her an extra coat that they brought along just in case. It was a couple sizes too big, but she knew it was necessary and she was grateful nonetheless. She exited the dropship, seeing the familiar, yet almost alien sight of the Ecopoint. It had to have been years since it the last time it had seen any signs of life.  
Mei purposely avoided the room with the cryostasis pods, in hopes to prevent more tears in the cold weather. It took a little longer to get to the crew quarters than it would have if she had went through the cryostasis chamber, but it was worth it. She arrived at the crew quarters, and immediately started to collect her belongings. A couple of her journals, schematics for a weather drone labeled “snowball”, an unfinished prototype for a weapon that could manipulate the power of ice, her glasses, her hairpin, and some extra sets of casual clothing for the journey back were, and a couple other items were all of the things she packed into her bag.  
She couldn't help to notice that Opara’s journal lay wide open on one of the bunks adjacent to hers. Mei-ling considered leaving it there, but she needed to learn more about what happened after she was put into cryostasis, so she slipped it in her bag with the rest of her things.  
Before heading back to the ship, she put her custom fitted coat built for extreme temperatures on, along with the boots that went with it. The extra coat was draped around her waist, and she started her journey back to the aircraft. Unintentionally, she walked through the cryogenic lab, and froze dead in her tracks. She broke down in tears. All of the cryostasis pods were closed and displayed that there were no signs of life. The only one that was not closed was the pod that Mei assumed was her’s.  
A wave of emotions overcame her, and she could barley contain it. All of her friends were trapped in there, and worse than that was her relationship with Torres was finally starting to get serious, and they agreed to start a family together once their time at the ecopoint was finished. The woman she loved was dead, and that was difficult for her to comprehend. Her heart was now a heart of shattered ice. She forced herself to leave the room and resumed to her trip to the dropship and told herself that she would deal with it later  
Mei arrived at the Orca shortly after her emotional breakdown at the cryogenics lab. When she boarded the ship, she was greeted by the two women on board. Angela softly waved at the sight of her, and Mei waved back. “Didya’ find everything you were lookin’ for” Tracer asked. Mei nodded, she was not ready to talk yet. She handed the spare coat back to Lena, and softly said “thanks” before heading back to the med-bay, a place where she could be alone.  
An hour had passed since she returned, and the climatologist used this time to write in her journal. There was a knock on the door, and then Tracer let herself in. “I just wanted to let you know that we’re takin’ off shortly, love.” She said “Ang was wonderin’ if you’d be okay with comin’ back to Gibraltar with us.” Lena asked.  
The realization hit her; _I don't have anywhere to call home_ she thought to herself. Before she left to study at Ecopoint Antarctica, she moved out of her apartment in Xi’an, China, so she didn't have to pay unnecessary rent during her time spent there. “That would be very nice, thank you Lena” Mei said and Lena nodded, and started out the door. “If you need to talk with someone, I’m here” Lena said before walking out the door. She turned off the light, and closed her eyes.  
When sleep came, it was filled with nightmares. Her friends were banging on the glass cryostasis pods, trying desperately to escape, but with no success. Mei could only just stand there, helpless and unable to save any of them. Suddenly, she was trapped again, frost forming on every part of her body.  
She jolted awake, her bedsheets covered with sweat. With going back to sleep being seemingly impossible and since she had nothing else to do, she decided that it would be best to start to get ready for the day ahead of her. Mei put on a change of clothes, and then put on her hairpin and her glasses.  
When she exited the room and went out to the main area, she saw Angela peacefully sleeping on one of the couches. In an attempt to let the doctor that had treated her so kindly get some sleep, she quietly made her way to the cockpit, where she suspected Tracer would be. Lena could hear her soft footsteps as Mei approached her. “Heya, luv” she said, cheerfully. Lena knew that Mei would likely still be in an emotionally fragile state, so she made sure not to overstep any boundaries.  
“Hello, Lena” Mei said, attempting not to sound as sad as she felt. Lena, however, could still see the pain in the other woman's eyes. Because of this, she decided it would be best to stick to small talk for now. Mei sat down in the seat beside her, and asked “How long was I asleep?” “Oh, you slept for ‘bout seven hours I'm guessin’” Lena replied. “If you don't mind me asking, when do you expect us to arrive at Gibraltar?” Mei politely said. “It'll be ‘bout another day before we arrive, but we’re stopping to refuel in the city of Numbani and we'll be arrivin’ there in ‘bout three hours.” Lena said.  
_Numbani, that's a city I have not heard about for awhile_ Mei thought. Numbani was a city located in a county with the same name. It made sense to refuel there because it was not too far off of the course to Gibraltar. The city was well known for being a place where omnics were treated the same way as humans. Mei liked that there were places like that on the planet, it helped further cement the fact that our world is worth fighting for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The names at the beginning of this chapter are the ones displayed on the cryostasis pods on Ecopoint Antarctica, and I used google earth to calculate how long it would take to fly from Antarctica to Gibraltar. Numani fits well as a refueling stop because it wasn’t too far off the route to Gibraltar, and the attacking spawn is an airport so it seemed fitting.


	3. UPDATE

I've been thinking about the direction I this has been going, and I realized my dissatisfaction with what I have wrote so far. I decided to make the decision to completely rewrite the first two chapters. I will keep this posted, but I'll post the new one as a new story. I don't know how long it will take to rewrite all of this, so I have no ETA for you guys. I'm sorry, but don't worry. The rewritten version will be much better than what I have so far. If you're interested in the improved version, subscribe to my account so you will get an email when I post the new one. Thank you for your patience.


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